Free Will Astrology: Dec. 28, 2011 - Jan. 3, 2012

ARIES [March 21–April 19] In North America, a farmer who grows wheat gets only 5 percent of the money earned by selling a loaf of bread made from his crop. When my band recorded an album for MCA, our contract called for us to receive just 7 percent of the net profits. I encourage you to push for a much bigger share than that for the work you do in 2012. It will be an excellent time to raise the levels of respect you have for your own gifts—and to ask for that increased respect as well.

TAURUS [April 20–May 20] For much of the 19th century, aluminum was regarded as a precious metal more valuable than gold. It was even used for the capstone of the Washington Monument, dedicated in 1884. The reason for this curiosity? Until the 1890s, it was difficult and expensive to extract aluminum from its ore. Then a new technology was developed that made the process cheap. In 2012, Taurus, I'm predicting a metaphorically similar progression in your own life.

GEMINI [May 21–June 20] The coming year will be a good time for you to consider investigating the Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster. Devotees of this religion call themselves Pastafarians. Their main dogma is the wisdom of rejecting all dogma. Having such a light-hearted approach to spiritual matters would be quite healthy for you to experiment with. For extra credit, you could draw inspiration from a church member named Niko Alm. He convinced authorities to allow him to wear a pasta strainer on his head for his driver's license photo.

CANCER [June 21–July 22] Terrence
Malick's Tree of Life is an ambitious work that deviates from formulaic approaches to filmmaking. Some observers hated its experimental invocation of big ideas, while others approved. New York Times critic A.O. Scott compared the movie to Herman Melville's Moby Dick, one of America's great works of literature. Here's what Scott wrote: "Mr. Malick might have been well advised to leave out the dinosaurs and the trip to the afterlife and given us a delicate chronicle of a young man's struggle with his father and himself. And perhaps Melville should have suppressed his philosophizing impulses and written a lively tale of a whaling voyage." Using this as a template, Cancerian, I urge you to treat 2012 as a time when you will be like Melville and Malick in your chosen field. Trust your daring, expansive vision.

LEO [July 23–August 22] I love the way they celebrate the new year in Stonehaven, Scotland. A procession of revelers swings big flaming baskets around on the ends of long chains. I recommend that you carry out a comparable ritual as you barge into 2012, Leo. Symbolically speaking, it would set the perfect tone. The coming months should be a kind of extended fire festival for you—a time when you faithfully stoke the blaze in your belly, the radiance in your eyes, and the brilliance in your heart.

VIRGO [August 23–September 22] Historian David McCullough wrote The Greater Journey, a book telling the stories of ambitious young American artists who relocated to Paris between 1830 and 1900. They had to move away because their home country had no museums or art schools at that time. You Virgos might want to consider seeking a similar enlargement of your possibilities in the coming months. As you seek out the resources that will help you follow your dreams, be prepared to look beyond what you already know and what's immediately available.

LIBRA [September 23–October 22] Professional basketball player Ron Artest petitioned the court to let him change his name to "Metta World Peace." "Metta" is a Buddhist term that signifies loving kindness and benevolence. When the new moniker became official, Metta World Peace sealed a radical shift away from his old way of doing things, symbolized by the time he leaped into the stands in the middle of a game to punch a fan in the head. The coming months will be an excellent time for you Libras to initiate a rite of passage that will expedite an equally dramatic transformation.

SCORPIO [October 23–November 21] Many of the questions we had as children never got resolved or answered to our satisfaction. They still remain marinating in the back of our minds. Meanwhile, fresh queries keep welling up within us as the years go by. After a while, we've got a huge collection of enigmas, riddles, and conundrums. Some of us regard this as a tangled problem that weighs us down, while others see it as a sparkly delight that keeps making life more and more interesting. Where do you stand on the issue, Scorpio? If you're in the latter group, you will be fully open to the experiences that will be flowing your way in 2012. And that means you will be blessed with a host of sumptuous and catalytic new questions.

SAGITTARIUS [November 22–December 21] The first half of 2012 will be an excellent time to for you to exorcize any prejudices you might be harboring toward anyone who lives or thinks differently from you. You'll be able to see your own irrational biases with exceptional clarity and are also likely to have exceptional success at scouring yourself free of them. This will give you access to new reserves of psychic energy you didn't even realize you were shut off from. (P.S. I'm not saying you possess more intolerance or narrow-mindedness than any of the rest of us. It's just that this is your time to deal brilliantly with your share of it.)